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ADDRESS 



Delivered before Atlanta Camp No, 
159, U. C. v., and the Atlanta 
Ch apt er U nit e d Daughters 
of the Confederacy 

JUNE 3, 1905 

In the Hall of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, Atlanta, Georgia, on the 
Life and Character of 

JEFFERSON 
DAVIS 

BY 

HON. BENJ. M. BLACKBURN 



PUBLISHED FOR DISTRIBUTION BY 

ATLA.NTA CAMP No. 159 

======= u. C V. ^ 

A just tribute to the South's honored 
President and Spotless Patriot 



ADDRESS 



^ 



Delivered before Atlanta Camp No. 
159, U. C. v., and the Atlanta 
C h a pt er U n it e d Daughters 
of the Confederacy 

JUNE 3, 1905 

In the Hall of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, Atlanta, Georgia, on the 
Life and Character of 

JEFFERSON 
DAVIS 

BY 

HON. BENJ. M. BLACKBURN 



PUBLISHED FOR DISTRIBUTION BY 

ATLANTA CAMP No. 159 

' U. C V. = 

A just tribute to the South's honored 
President and Spotless Patriot 



^7 



Atlanta, Ga. 
The Franklin Printing and Publishing Company 
(Geo. VV, Harrison, Manager) 
1905 



J 



<4 



^ 



JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



Mothers and Daughters of the Confederacy — Veterans of 

the Noblest Cause that Emblazons Patriotism — Ladies 

and Gentlemen: 

In what I may say to-day, I shall be governed by a feel- 
ing of reverential responsibility toward a cause and a lead- 
er that were nurtured in an atmosphere which should never 
be contaminated by suggestion of unholy compromise or 
cowardly apolog^^ I shall be directed by that deferential 
behavior that should always be evinced by the younger 
generation toward them that have kept the faith, rather 
than by any idea of presenting to you, who wear the 
snowy mantle of patriotic knowledge, an address that 
offers special intellectual entertainment. 

In this hour that is fraught with recollections of duty 
heroically performed, rhetorical display should be held 
in tender subjection to sincere estimate. On this occasion 
the truth, as I know it, will be delivered, without regard 
to the exactions of political compromisers, who would 
build industrial strength on the rotten sinews of dis- 
mantled manhood ; or the hysterics of editorial apologists, 
who see in every uncompromising Southern utterance 
evidence of restricted Americanism ; nor do I care for the 
patronizing commendation of that class of educators, 
competing for the donations of the wealthy, without re- 
gard to the moral sacrifices to be made. 

I stand, a man, at the shrine of imperishable manhood, 
claiming nothing less, asking nothing more, than the ap- 
proval of the enfeebled but unbending survivors of the 
most righteous cause that ever inspired the heart of man. 

I count it an honor, rarely conferred, to have been in- 



vited by the Confederate Veterans of Atlanta to address 
them the second time on the occasion of the anniversary 
of the birth of the most unselfish patriot that ever held 
the office of President since the Colonies rebelled against 
British oppression. By decree of the political fates Jeffer- 
son Davis was never President of all the States — but, by 
the blessings of God, he was incomparably superior, in 
lofty purpose, unselfish heroism and broad Americanism 
to any such official in the life of this Republic. 

The fact that this incorruptible patriot, whose career 
reflected a sublime civilization to which no Rough Rider 
ever aspired, has been wantonly slandered by one now in 
possession of the Presidential office, is the highest possi- 
ble tribute to the integrity and the patriotism of the 
South's untarnished and immortal Chieftain. In addition 
to slandering our leader this Africanized creature has 
said of the people of the Old South : ''Slavery is chiefly 
responsible for the streak of coarse and brutal barba- 
rianism which ran through the Southern character." He 
who would perpetrate so deliberate a slander upon the 
people from whose ranks sprang the mother of his being, 
is too irreverent to be brave, and too vulgar to be truth- 
ful. It would be sacrilege to mention such a dastard's 
name on this sacred day. 

There are editors, politicians and educators in the 
South whose stock in trade seems to be to exploit breadth 
of estimate until manhood becomes flattened into sheets 
of human mica. These small creatures are not only ready 
to condone the brutal insults of the politically potential, 
but actually condemn those dignified protestors who are 
too manly to bend the knee, and too assertive to stifle 
honest convictions. Subservients to power, they would 
give unrestrained freedom to the weapon of calumny in 



the hand of one suddenly elevated, lest they be suspected 
of lese majeste. 

Whatever my feeling of pity and contempt for such 
time-servers, the unmanly display disturbs me not half 
so much as the overwhelming sadness experienced when 
I hear that a Confederate veteran has placed in eclipse a 
record of daring and patriotism, by laying tribute at the 
feet of an unhallowed ruffianism, which respects neither 
maternity nor the grave in its ghoulish visitation of sec- 
tional venom. He who refers to Jefferson Davis as a 
traitor, charges treason to Qvtry man who followed the 
Stars and Bars, and no political position should save him 
from the retaliatory charge of libellous slander. How 
fallen the man of the South who would be willing to ad- 
just sectional differences except on the basis of the with- 
drawal of this venal libel on his Chieftain. 

Give me the man of iron, and pride, and honor, who 
stands for the right, without regard to success ! Such is 
the character that we epitomize this day — one so lordly 
in his relation to the world, so close and devoted to the 
people of his land, and so true and unflinching in the dis- 
mal hour of imprisonment, that all civilizations, in the end, 
must say of him : Whether breathing freedom in the 
liberated atmosphere of Heaven, or inhaling disease from 
the imprisoned vapors of the dungeon, Jefferson Davis 
was the purest and most unfaltering personality that ever 
led a popular movement, except the Christ that vouch- 
safed him to humanity and to liberty. 

The South 's leader was a most uncommon gift to civili- 
zation. Of gentle birth, brought up in an environment 
of chivalry, educated at West Point, he developed intO' 
chevalier, scholar, patriot, soldier and statesman. An un- 
compromising enemy to the wrong; an eternal foe to de- 
ception and hypocrisy ; the everlasting companion of can- 



dor and sincerity ; true in all things, he gave to the world 
a life that emblazoned the coronet of Time with the re- 
splendent jewels of honor and patriotism. 

Born of a parentage that represented the strongest and 
gentlest blood of the South, he was, by all the elements of 
Nature, a leader among men. Proud, without hauteur; 
an aristocrat, who ever showed the most delicate consider- 
ation for the humblest in life; lion-hearted in courage, 
yet dominated by tender emotions; gifted to the degree 
of genius, without the least show of disdain ; ambitious to 
serve his people, without regard to personal reward, it is 
not surprising that in an atmosphere of patriotism and 
refinement, Jefferson Davis should have evolved into the 
most wonderful impersonation of culture, courage, elo- 
quence, statesmanship and patriotism that this world has 
ever known. 

While history may recount a man, here and there, who 
surpassed Air. Davis in some specific attribute of great- 
ness, I repeat, that in all the symmetry of high moral and 
intellectual development, the South's great leader tower- 
ed, like a veritable Colossus, above the men of this earth. 

The dominant characteristics that distinguished Jeffer- 
son Davis in his public career, were noticeable even in his 
young life. As a child he was loved for his devoted 
loyalty, and respected for his manly deportment. Friend- 
ships formed in boyhood clung to him through life, with 
such unvarying zeal as to challenge the esteem of his 
enemies and win the admiration of all who knew him. 

His Christianity was of that broad and exalted type 
that tolerated the greatest liberty of conscience, and of 
that forbearing excellence which gave little comfort to 
the Puritan that chanced to come into his munificent pres- 
ence. 

After receiving an academic education in Kentucky, 



he entered the United States MiHtary Academy at West 
Point, where he graduated in 1828, and l)egun active 
service as brevet second h'eutenant. He remained in the 
army seven years, and so distinguished himself in the 
Black Hawk war that he was promoted to tirst lieutenant 
of dragoons. 

In 1835 he resigned his commission in the- army, in 
answer to the appeals of his brother, returned to Missis- 
sippi, and became a cotton-planter. He followed a pas- 
toral life until 1844, when he was chosen one of the 
electors on the Polk-Dallas Presidential ticket. In 1845 
he was elected to Congress, and at once became a recog- 
nized leader, bearing a conspicuous part in the discussions 
on the tariff, the Oregon question, and the war with 
Mexico. In 1846 he was elected Colonel of the Missis- 
sippi Rifles, and, although he had served only one year 
of his Congressional term, he immediately resigned, in 
the morning of a brilliant political life, to join his people 
at New Orleans, on their way to the seat of war. 

He distinguished himself at Monterey, where he dis- 
played almost superhuman courage, by personally lead- 
ing his regiment, in a successful charge, that swept 
through a galling fire from the frowning redoubts of that 
strongly entrenched city, with all the fury of a tempest. 
The heroic storming of Teneria caused all the world to 
ring with the story of the fame of Davis and his Missis- 
sippi Rifles. A new star had appeared in the firmament 
of military glory. At a single bound Jefferson Davis had 
joined the ranks of the great warriors of the earth. 

To surpass the glorious prestige of Monterey was the 
aspiration and the determination of this immortal son of 
an incomparable civilization. Jefferson Davis was yet to 
shed new lustre upon the escutcheon of a State that had 
nurtured him into the fullness of a perfect manhood. The 



radiance of Monterey was to fade, as did the starlit glory 
of Lodi before the noonday splendor of Austerlitz. If 
the name Davis, by this brilliant victory, had been made 
inseparable from the trophies of State that give potency 
to the flag of the American Union, his daring genius at 
Buena Vista presented him to the galaxy of the greatest 
military chieftains of the earth. Here he won a battle 
against such overwhelming odds, and in the face of such 
disheartening conditions as to make the operations 
around this historic field a marvel to military students. 

Like the intrepid Desaix, at Marengo, he rushed 
through the confused columns of an inglorious stampede, 
to what seemed to be inevitable death, and, although se- 
verely wounded, this chevalier of the South refused to 
leave the saddle until he had lifted the palm of victory 
from the mire of defeat, and emblazoned the field of car- 
nage with the glories of another triumph. 

The historic tactic movement wherein Col. Davis form- 
ed his regiment into the now famous V, in which position 
he dauntlessly awaited the mad charge of the Mexican 
lancers, was sO' original in conception and daringly suc- 
cessful in execution that it extorted the enthusiastic ad- 
miration of Wellington, and elicited the praise of the 
military captains of the world. In recognition of his 
gallantry he was personally complimented by dispatch 
from the Commander-in-chief, and as a mark of further 
distinction, commissioned Brigadier-General of Volun- 
teers, by President Polk, a promotion that he declined, on 
the ground that the Constitution reserves to the respec- 
tive States the right of such appointment. The only 
young officer who won a general's commission in the war 
with Mexico, Jefferson Davis was too true to political 
principle to^ gratify his passion for military promotion at 
the expense of State sovereignty. Where, in history, can 
a parallel to this exhibition of true greatness be found ? 



There is but one example in military annals of such a 
consummately successful and daringly original maneu- 
ver. In the battle of Inkermann, during the Crimean 
war, a British officer, Sir Colin Campbell, copied this 
splendid military suggestion in one of the desperate 
charges, on account of which he was distinguished by be- 
ing selected to retrieve the fallen fortunes of England in 
India, whereas Jefferson Davis, the author, was later dis- 
franchised by an ungrateful government for daring to ex- 
ercise a constitutional right. 

Returning to his plantation, after this memorable ser- 
vice to his State and to the Union, Mr. Davis, in 1847, 
was appointed to fill a vacancy as United States Senator 
from Mississippi, and was later twice elected tO' this office. 
Here he displayed his genius in debate, and his wonderful 
grasp of political problems in such a way as to easily di- 
vide honors with Calhoun as leader of the State Rights 
party. He was so ready and intrepid that when Henry 
Clay, on one occasion, turned to him in the course of de- 
bate and said, that at some future time he would discuss 
with him an important question of principle, Mr, Davis 
replied : ''Now is the moment." Even then he was a foe- 
man worthy the lance of either Calhoun, Webster or 
Clay. Great in all the fields of accomplishment to which 
his varied attainments directed the vital energies of this 
w^onderful life, the South could well afford to entrust the 
fame of her leader to^ a faithful record of his service in 
the Senate. His career in the first legislative body of the 
Union was in harmonious accord with the most perfect 
parliamentary models. Every utterance of this supreme 
thinker was masterful. His defiant intrepidity was sug- 
gestive of Chatham; his scholarly renown reflected 
Brougham; his polished and perspicuous diction remind- 



10 



ed one of Canning; his comprehensive grasp of the prin- 
ciples of government was not excelled by Burke; while 
in impassioned debate he displayed all the fervor of Grat- 
tan, combined with the subtle alertness of Fox. He car- 
ried into the Senate a lofty and dignified courage; a 
broad patriotism; a sense of conscientious responsibility; 
and a profound and accurate knowledge that elevated, en- 
nobled, impressed and illuminated the atmosphere of Sen- 
atorial discussion. 

In 185 1, immediately after his second election to the 
Senate, the Democracy of Mississippi, desiring to wrest 
the State government from , the control of^ the Union 
party, nominated him for Governor. He answered the 
appeal of his people by again resigning, this time a seat 
for the full term, in order to carry the standard of the 
State Rights party in a minority fight. Such was his 
popularity, though defeated, that he reduced a majority of 
7,500 to the narrow margin of 999. 

Jefiferson Davis was not to remain in retirement. In 
1853 he was appointed Secretary of War, by President 
Pierce, and his administration of this ofiice was such as 
to make him the most popular, as he is concededly the 
ablest official in the history of that department. .He car- 
ried into effect the revision of army regulations; the in- 
troduction of light infantry, or the rifle system of tactics ; 
the manufacture of rifled muskets and pistols, and the 
Minie ball ; the addition of four regiments to the army ; 
the improvement of seacoast and frontier defenses; the 
exploration of the best route for a railroad to the Pacific 
Ocean ; and the building of Cabin John bridge, near the 
Potomac, the widest single span of masonry, at that time, 
in the world. The vandals of the Lincoln administration 
chiseled his name from the tablet of record that desig- 
nated the builder of this wonderful monument to en- 



11 



gineering skill. His name must be carved anew on the 
keystone of this bridge, by direction of the President^ 
under an Act of Congress, before the South will believe 
in the professions of good will that come to her on the 
waves of condescending generosity from political and 
natural inferiors. 

At the close of the Pierce administration Mr. Davis 
was re-elected to the United States Senate, where he 
again served his State with such splendid ability that he 
was generally named, even in the North, as a leading 
Presidential possibility. Had it not been for the action 
of the Republican party in nominating an extreme sec- 
tionalist, and the disruption of the Democracy, which 
resulted in the election of this sectional candidate, Jefifer- 
son Davis, in all probability, would have been President 
of the United States, at the suggestion of the Northern 
Democracy. He was more popular in the North than 
any other Southern statesman, where he was honored for 
his conservative wisdom and exalted patriotism. 

It will thus appear that Jefiferson Davis relinquished 
more, in selfish political prospects, than any name asso- 
ciated with American history. 

He was reserved for a better, grander and more en- 
during test. In 1 86 1 Mississippi, like all the States of 
the South, was forced to surrender its integrity, or secede 
from the Union. This thought leads me into a presenta- 
tion of the constitutional issues of the struggle that fol- 
lowed : 

The causes that led up to the war between the States 
had their birth in the opposition of ideas and ideals that 
possessed the two types which settled Jamestown and 
Plymouth Rock. The Cavaliers and the Puritans were 
in continuous warfare in England, prior to the settlement 
of the Colonies, and as a natural result of these existent 



12 



political antagonisms, which had steadily grown in in- 
tensity, they drifted apart when they determined to seek 
a new home in America. 

After arriving in their new and untried fields of en- 
deavor, they remained as distinctly separate as if they 
had represented separate and distinct races. Individuals 
represented the respective types. It was Miles Standish 
and Endicott, against John Smith and Raleigh. It was in 
answer to the law of natural selection that these two peo- 
ples landed in climatic homes best suited to their psycho- 
logical standards. The Cavalier drifted naturally to the 
Southern, the Puritan to the Northern coast. 

There was nothing in common between the Cavalier and 
the Puritan. The former was too broad to be little, while 
the latter was too contracted to be liberal. Endicott so 
hated the Cavalier that he compelled the women of his 
colony to wear veils, and forced the men to cut their hair 
short. It was the Puritan clergy of Massachusetts that 
drove Roger Williams out of their colony, on account of 
his liberal religious views, and this was the type that 
burned and hanged old women for witchcraft. The re- 
verse was true of the liberal, forbearing and chivalrous 
Cavalier. Raleigh was not made in this mould, nor was 
John Smith. 

It was not until a common evil threatened that the two 
peoples entered into a compact for mutual protection. " It 
was decided to rebel against the oppressive taxation of 
England, and a confederation was formed. The peoples 
were so distinctly apart, that even the articles of agree- 
ment entered- into by their representatives, evidenced a 
suppressed sectionalism that was destined to cause trou- 
ble. This agreement was later subjected to such oppos- 
ing construction, as to threaten dissolution, by some of 
the New England States seceding, long before the con- 



13 



flict of the sixties. The right of secession had never been 
questioned. It had been taught at West Point, and advo- 
cated by the statesmen of both sections. 

SectionaHsm was, therefore, the primal cause of the 
war ; slavery a mere incident of the struggle. There were 
few people in the North who objected, or professed to 
object to the institution of slavery, until the popular mind 
was inflamed by the design of sectional agitators, who did 
not desire abolition except as a measure secondary to 
political vantage. 

In accord with this view, as late as 1835, an English- 
man (Thompson) was driven from Fanuel Hall, by a 
Boston mob, for advocating abolitionism. It was com- 
mon in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New 
Hampshire, Connecticut, and other States of the North, 
to tar and feather people for this offense against their 
ethical standard. In 1837 a man (Lovejoy) was killed 
by a mob in Illinois, for agitating the abolition doctrine. 
A most extreme protectorate, it would seem, had been 
thrown around the institution of slavery, and in the very 
land where hypocritical cant and political design were 
conspiring to encompass its overthrow, by a systematic 
policy of goading the South into a revolutionary act. 

When the sectional feeling grew in intensity, more 
liberty was given these agitators. This was not done in 
answer to any suggestion of conscience, but on account 
of the selfishness which nurtured a high protective tariff, 
as. the best policy of the manufacturing North, against 
the principle of free trade, that seemed to be necessary 
to the continued ascendency of the agricultural South. 

Thus it will appear that unequal taxation, the cause of 
the confederation of the Colonies against England, was 
to be the entering wedge to bring about the dissolution 



14 



of the incongruous compact that threw off the original 
yoke. 

In order to maintain sectional inequality, the North- 
ern States opposed the admission of Southern Territories 
into the Union, for the expressed reason "that it gave 
too much weight to the Southern extremity," a feeling 
that was notably exhibited as to Missouri and Texas. 

The compromise of 1820, which defined certain po- 
litico-sectional lines for slavery, itself an al)ridgment, was 
abrogated by the refusal of the North to make it appli- 
cable tO' the territory accjuired from Mexico. In 1854 the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed. This was intended to 
return to the rule which had been infringed by the com- 
promise of 1820, but it likewise was subverted by the 
suggestion of "squatter sovereignty," which marked yet 
another abridgment of the territorial rights of the South, 
the design being to place the property of the Northern 
settlers in the new territory on a more tranquil basis than 
had been guaranteed the property interests of the South. 
This purpose was not confined to the Northern leaders in 
Congress ; it was accentuated by the policy of the North- 
ern pulpit — even preachers going so far as to advise the 
Northern emigrants to go to the new district with a 
"Bible and Sharpe's rifle," the latter to shoot into the 
Southern man who brouglit slave property to the terri- 
tories. 

These inflammatory talks, encouraged as they were by 
the political leaders of the North, were followed by Har- 
riet Beecher Stowe's extreme and libellous presentation 
of slavery, and John Brown's fanatical and bloody in- 
cursion of Virginia, which had the moral and financial 
support of some of the most influential people of the 
North. It seemed to be the demoniacal intent of the 
North to goad the South into extreme measures of re- 



15 



sentment, and claim the support of civilization under 
cover of universal liberty. With abandoned disregard of 
their official oaths the Governors of Northern States had 
refused to recognize the fugitive slave law, and the rights 
of the States were at the mercy of sectional design and 
hatred. Lincoln, a sectional President, was elected on a 
sectional issue, by a sectional vote. He had expressed the 
idea that the "Union could not exist one-half slave and 
one-half free," had appointed Seward as chief of his 
cabinet, who was to dominate his administration, a man 
who had refused to meet Mr. Davis and the Southern 
members of the Senate in conciliatory discussion, at the 
close of the Buchanan administration, one who had desig- 
nated the trouble between the South and the North an 
''irreconcilable conflict." 

These conditions tended to arouse the resentment of 
the Southern masses, who had already borne more than 
was their nature to bear, and dreading the impending 
evil of social equality growing out of threatened aboli- 
tionism, if they remained in the Union, they, the rank 
and file, voted their leaders into secession. They dreaded 
the social consequence of liberating the slaves more than 
they valued the institution of slavery, in which they had 
not a dollar invested. It was the popular mind of the 
South, not the slave-owner, that led the secession move- 
ment. 

When President Lincoln issued a proclamation block- 
ading the ports of the South, and called out an army O'f 
75,000 troops to quell a peaceful movement which the 
statesmen of his section had advocated as a constitutional 
right, including himself, followed by a wanton violation 
of his pledge tO' the Fort Sumter Commissioners, in se- 
cretly fitting out a relief expedition, as a measure of mili- 
tary vantage, the South, although preferring peace, be- 



u 



came aroused to the necessity of war, and fired the shot 
that sounded the end of patriotic forbearance ; a shot that 
forever drew the Hne between the Southern and the North- 
ern types of American civihzation. 

The unanswered and unanswerable logic of Jefferson 
Davis, and other statesmen of the South, concerning the 
issues that led up to the sanguinary separation of States, 
stand on the record as a living challenge to the preten- 
tious intellect of the North, and a defiant protest against 
the argument of the sword. 

It was then that Jefferson Davis, guided as he had 
ever been by lofty conception of duty, resigned his seat 
in the United States Congress for the third time. Casting 
political fortunes tO' the winds he again returned to his 
people, this time in response to their selection of him as 
Commander-in-chief of the Army of Mississippi. His 
speech on the occasion of his withdrawal from the Senate 
will live forever in the splendid galaxy of patriotic elo- 
quence. 

Jefferson Davis resigned more offices than most politi- 
cal leaders fill. He considered them all from the view- 
point of duty, and was, therefore, greater than any office 
than man can hold. In this display he exhibited an un- 
selfish patriotism that places him far above any man in 
the political history of this or any other country. 

Although preferring to serve his State and section as 
a soldier, the people of the South would not consent to any 
other name for their President, and he was nominated, 
and afterwards unanimously elected to this office for a 
term of six years. He was thus impelled to again resign 
a position of rare honor. Commander-in-chief of the 
Army of Mississippi. 

Whether considered as a genius of military discipline 
and strategy, a field of operation that had become with 



17 



him a passion, an inspiration — or a master of logical elo- 
quence and matured statecraft, a stage of action in which 
the philosophy of his life had moulded into leadership the 
sublimest patriot of the age — it is not extravagant praise 
of him to say, that Jefferson Davis was the idol of his 
people. 

When Mr. Gladstone, the ''Grand Old Man" of Eng- 
land, stated that "Mr. Jefferson Davis had created a na- 
tion," he reflected the intelligent estimate of the Presi- 
dent of the Confederacy throughout the Old W^orld. Mr. 
Davis's reputation for purity, dignity, firmness and ability 
was universal. The pleasing contrast presented in the 
noble bearing of this polished gentleman of the South, as 
he traveled from Vicksburg to Montgomery, to be 
crowned with the love of his people, with the undignified 
and vulgar display that attended the journey of Mr. Lin- 
coln from Springfield to Washington, is a fair index to 
the civilizations that had produced the two leaders. The 
one represented the gentlest fabric of the South ; the other 
was apart from cultured environment in the North. 

I say this not in harsh disparagement, but since the 
North is pleased to talk so boastfully of standards, the 
South confidently presents the model in Jefferson Davis, 
on whose sublime crest no trace of coarseness has ever yet 
been detected by the searching eye of envious scrutiny. 

It was Talleyrand who said : "Nothing succeeds like 
success." Not Talleyrand, nor the consensus of preju- 
diced estimate can change a natural law. Whatever the 
result of the application of such a low standard of excel- 
lence, the South would not exchange the wealth of pride 
she feels in the ethical symmetry and unapproachable pa- 
triotism of her own patron saint, for all the vanishing 
successes of this existence. 

The wisdom displayed by Mr. Davis in the preparation 



18 



of the Constitution of the new government; his surpass- 
ing knowledge of men reflected in his selection of mili- 
tary leaders, whose daring and success in battle exceeded 
the glory of Napoleon and his marshals ; his great skill in 
organizing and maintaining an army of more than suc- 
cessful resistance for four years ; his devoted and un- 
selfish loyalty to his people when everything seemed to be 
against them ; his unblemished integrity in the manage- 
ment of the funds of the South, and his undismayed de- 
termination in the face of the opposition of the combined 
world more than justified the wisdom of his selection as 
the Chief Executive of the Southern Confederacy. 

Throughout the sanguinary conflict, in which the 
Southern soldier bore himself in such a way as to excite 
the military wonder and ethical admiration of the world, 
President Davis remained undaunted. When Alexander 
Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter and John Campbell, the com- 
sioners appointed by the Confederate Government to meet 
President Lincoln in a peace conference, returned from 
their fruitless mission to Hampton Roads, and reported 
that Mr. Lincoln would agree to nothing except uncon- 
ditional submission, a report that has since gone through 
the mill of slander and emerged in the guise of a proffer 
by Lincoln to pay for the slaves of the South, when Lin- 
coln himself said, in his message to Congress, that he 
oft'ered nothing except unconditional surrender, Presi- 
dent Davis, though sorely disappointed, determined to 
continue the struggle, with increased resistance, for vital 
constitutional rights. Refusing to consign the honor and 
the glory of the South to the sacrificial altar of a mocking 
peace, he issued a proclamation, calling upon the people 
of Richmond to assemble and reconsecrate themselves tO' 
the cause of liberty. Mr. Alexander Stephens said of his- 
deliverance on this occasion : 



19 



''His speech was not only bold, undaunted, and confi- 
dent in its tone, 1)ut had that loftiness of sentiment and 
rare form of expression, as well as magnetic influence in 
its delivery, by which the passions of the masses of the 
people are moved to their profoundest depths, and roused 
to the highest pitch of excitement. Many who had heard 
this master of oratory in his most brilliant displays in the 
Senate and on the hustings, said they never before saw 
Mr. Davis so really majestic. The occasion, and the 
effects of the speech, as well as all the circumstances un- 
der which it was made, caused the minds of not a^few to 
advert to like appeals by Rienzi and Demosthenes." 

While Jefferson Davis was a wonderful personality in 
the sunlight of success, he rose to the heights of grandeur 
in the gloom of defeat. When he saw the government 
nurtured by his devotion and strengthened by his genius 
overthrown; his own political and material fortunes scat- 
tered to the winds; looking out from the cruel prison 
walls of Fortress Monroe upon a devastated country; 
seeing his people, that he loved better than his own life, 
linked with hooks of steel, in yet another war, where the 
cowardly conqueror, after having accepted honorable sur- 
render, was vainly endeavoring, at the point of the bayo- 
net, to put the ignorant slave over the proud and intelli- 
gent master ; where all the horrors of social equality, ra- 
pine and murder were being threatened by the unbridled 
rapacity of carpetbag government ; surrounded as he w^as 
by the most cruel conditions and monstrous devices that 
were ever combined by Puritanical design to dismantle 
the glory of chivalry, Jefferson Davis rose to the pre-^ 
eminence of worldly grandeur when he bade his people 
be of good cheer and resolute heart, while he defied the 
cowardly brute who sought his humiliation in chains. 
The indignities put upon this good and great man blot 



20 



the escutcheon of a government that was too vindictive 
to do him simple justice even in the hour of death, by its 
refusal to lower the flag of the War Department in honor 
of one whose State papers, while President of the Con- 
federacy, will always be the standard of excellence in 
administrative literature, and whose integrity, fidelity and 
brilliant forethought during his charge of the war port- 
folio of the General Government, will stand as a beacon- 
light to his successors until time shall be no more. • 

The mutations of time will yet visit upon them that 
have waged a war of calumny upon the great the censure 
of that enlightened condemnation which says : Your 
cowardly and venomous aspersion upon the patriotism 
of such a rare presentation of nobility as the immortal 
chieftain of the South reflect on the flag whose stars em- 
blazon the historic glory of Buena Vista, and whose elo- 
quent folds sing undying tribute to Southern leadership. 

I love the flag of this Union — that glorious emblem of 
statehood that was won by George Washington at York- 
towni, protected by Andrew Jackson at New Orleans, and 
clothed with new glory by Jefferson Davis at Buena 
Vista. Without this grand trinity of patriotism from the 
untarnished womb of the South, the United States ol 
America would not to-da}^ offer a home to the monarch- 
ridden peoples of the earth, through the light-houses of 
Liberty that shed glory upon her limitless coasts. 

I love, yes, wath deathless devotion, the Stars and Bars, 
that enshrined emblem of constitutional liberty in 
America. 

Both reflect the patriotic glory of Jefferson Davis, who 
is at last the test of any sincere sectional adjustment be- 
tween the South and the North. The North should un- 
derstand that, while the South concedes to that section 
the right to worship at the shrine of Abraham Lincoln, 



21 



she insists upon the privilege of glorifying the patriotism 
of Jefferson Davis. There are politicians of the South 
that have forged the right to speak for our people. Many 
have been afraid to mention the name of Mr. Davis before 
a Northern audience. These cringing nondescripts do not 
represent the South. He who would be willing to ob- 
literate sectionalism by accepting the half-hearted tributes 
of the North to Lee and Jackson, while the entire people 
of the South are still under indictment through Jefferson 
Davis, their leader/ is a defamation on Southern man- 
hood. Lee, the greatest commander the world ever saw, 
was a presentation to military glory by the unerring judg- 
ment of Jefferson Davis. He always deferred to Mr. 
Davis with the devotion of a brother — and the unequalled 
Jackson bowed recognition to them both. Lee was no 
more theJeader of the South, than was Grant the leader 
of the North. The test must be Davis and Lincoln, Lee 
and Grant, Jackson and McClellan, in the order named, 
and on the same plane of manly concession. Then hands 
off as to our internal affairs, or one hundred years from 
now will find some senseless hypocrite talking about the 
near approach of a reunited country. 

Our people observed in Jefferson Davis a patriot more 
unselfish than Kossuth ; a cavalier, whose daring was not 
less superb than that of Henry of Navarre ; a statesman, 
whose splendid thought and devoted purpose are sur- 
passed by no name that ever shed lustre upon a nation's 
statutes ; a soldier, whose skill and intrepidity at Buena 
Vista was radiant with Napoleonic glory; a leader, who 
when overwhelmed by defeat and cruel imprisonment, 
and insulted by the imprecations of a people that were 
afraid to try him for treason, bore himself with such dig- 
nity and courage as to suggest fhat he had no superior in 
history; and an author, thank God, who, unterrorized by 



22 



•defeat and calumny, left to the South a legacy in the 
''Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," unex- 
-celled in literary merit, priceless in historic value and un- 
answerable in constitutional logic. 

Georgia was the first State in the South to make June 
3d a legal holiday. Let Georgia continue to lead in move- 
ments to erect enduring monuments of love to the un- 
blemished leader of the South, who was put in chains for 
;standing by her integrity, by naming one of the proposed 
new counties Jeff Davis. 

As Atlanta spread flowers along her thoroughfares in 
1886, in honor of this uncrow^ned king of the South, who 
had come to Georgia (a State that yet loved him as the 
son of a noble sire that she had given to fame), to pay 
tribute to the memory of his faithful friend, Benjamin 
Hill ; and embowered his sleeping body with immortelles, 
as it lay in state in the eloquent shadow of the monument 
to loyalty that he had unveiled but a few years before, on 
its last sad journey to Richmond, the Mecca of enshrined 
memories; so let us this day point the children of the 
South to Jefferson Davis, the exemplar of noble deeds 
and inspiring achievements — a faithful leader, who, pre- 
ferring to rest from his labors, marched to his final home 
with no suggestion of surrender or dishonor, under the 
triumphant banner of Duty ! We will not look upon our 
patron saint as dead, but as one, turning from the morn- 
ing of life, passed with heroic fortitude through the shad- 
ows to the purpling West, where, enveloped in the sunset 
grandeur of an unapproachable existence, he was lifted 
to the plains of eternal victory, and surrounded as he is 
by Lee, and Jackson, and Gordon, and the Immortals, he 
;awaits the final coming of the faithful. 



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